How Star Trek Artists Imagined the iPad... 23 Years Later

MorderVonAllem submitted an incredibly cool article about the computers and set design of Star Trek. If you are into that sort of thing, you're going to really like this one. It says "There are a lot of similarities between Apple's iPad and the mobile computing devices—known as PADDs—used in the Star Trek universe. Ars spoke to designers Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, and Doug Drexler to find out the thinking and inspiration behind the PADD and how closely the iPad represents a real-life incarnation of that dream."

Comments

iPad vs PADD

[a_nonamiss]

I always just took it as a given that the PADD was a large part of the inspiration behind the iPad. I mean, even the name pays homage. I can easily envision someone like Steve Jobs sitting down with a designer and some episodes of ST:TNG and saying "Now make me on of those".

It's pretty apparent that the set designers on ST:TNG were visionaries. It's pretty difficult to accurately envision the future, even if it's only 20 years ahead of time. Credit needs to be given to those guys. I just hope that Apple had the decency to give them free iPads when they were released.

Re:not quite.

[DerekLyons]

I dunno, it seems to me the iPad and the PADD aren't particularly analogous. iPads are interactive application frameworks; PADDs were usually only used exactly the same way paper is

Usually, but not always. ISTR them being used interactively during engineering diagnostics and for data entry in Sickbay.
 
I do recall an interview in the early 90's where Micheal Okuda stated that a PADD could act like any main display [like the ones on the bridge] and thus, in theory, one could operate the entire ship while strolling down a corridor with a PADD in hand. My copies of the technical manual have long since been consigned to the basement, but I believe those [theoretical] capabilities were discussed there as well.

Re:Wow...

[blincoln]

I'm not even convinced they originated the idea on Star Trek. I don't have a copy to hand to check, but I vaguely recall Arthur C. Clark writing something about Heywood Floyd reading a newspaper on an electronic tablet like device while en route to the moon in "2001: A Space Odyssey", which was published in 1968.

It's been awhile since I read the book, but in the film, it seems to be a reading device, not a general-purpose tablet computer. IE its interaction appears limited to the equivalent of flipping through a newspaper, as opposed to running applications.

On the topic of the PADD, I've been making my way through the various Star Trek series, and one of the things that's really struck me is how even though the Federation has access to advanced computing power and networking technology, crew members still physically hand each other PADDs to transfer information. In some cases, they'll end up with piles of PADDs on their desks if they're studying a particular topic in depth.

At first I thought that this was something along the lines of how William Gibson didn't think to include cellphones in Neuromancer, because essentially everyone was still using payphones back then. But after more reflection, maybe the Star Trek staff were just more forward-thinking and assumed some sort of draconian DRM scheme that locks data to a particular physical device :).